Guide: Starting in A1-0

[Maverick]

Politics
Sci-fi has been popular setting to bring political topics to the table, but to do that, your nation needs to have some politics of its own. Undoubtedly things have changed with technology and your politics may reflect that. Do your species wish to trade with others or remain in seclusion? Or is it their divine duty to purge all other sapient lifeforms? I would suggest you should start with one essential goal for your star nation and build from there. For the Treecuu and Stoinians this is their goal of domination. For the Drakari and Ryccians it is to maintain peace within their realm. You can also start with an idea or aspect which defines your nation. After watching the film MacArthur, starring Gregory Peck, I asked myself how the military would be without civilian oversight? How would a society work like that and how would it be created? Such a drastic change in society needs to have a cause and in the Stoinian case, its the Mardakii and Velutarians. I also envisioned that the original colonists went to the stars to preserve ancient human culture and customs, which we see slowly disappear in our own world. This gave the Stoinians a very devout and traditional character. It’s with such ideas that you suggest you get started. The ANF faces cybernetic augmentation like in the cyberpunk genre, while the Ryccians and Drakari have a more patronizing element towards younger races.
From there you can start to figure out how they came to be that way. Was it in their nature or did they face something in their history? From there you can begin to work on a government that reflects those elements.

Governments
Governments should be adapted to the needs of your nation. Even more so it becomes more complex as you have an overall government on each planetary government. Most star nations will be truly a bureaucratic machine. However, since planet likely will have their own government, there likely will be some tensions as these planets might strive for more power from the centralized government. Monarchies and republics should both work, but they will have to adapt to the needs of their people. How does representation work? Is it still similar to ours? Or does it fully use technology to bring its people closer to a direct democracy. Again, your imagination can truly go wild here. But you have to take into consideration that there are multiple layers and perhaps multiple government similar to that of a federation.
There’s however an aspect that I wish to discuss her. If you decide to make a conquering and domineering empire on a path of conquest, you should really think on how to maintain conquered worlds. The Treecuu Way is to confine primitive species to their homeworld and force them into isolation. This method is similar to what the Gao’uld do in Stargate. Having a galaxy spanning empire where world are kept on a primitive level so they can’t possibly rebel successfully and eventually the idea of freedom dies off. Military occupation can’t be indefinitely as illustrated by the Cardassian occupation of Bajor. Instead your government should have a clear and effective doctrine to keep newly conquered planets. Romans were effective in this as they showed respect to different cultures and largely didn’t care as long as they changed to their way of life. Another effective strategy, but these strategies take time and some nations might say its cheaper to produce a bullet for each conquered individual. Space can be dangerous, yet filled with hope and dreams.

Megastructures
Sci-fi is home to some serious structures. Here the wet dreams of engineers go truly bonanza and your star nation is able to have them. BUT… Before you add megastructures left and right, there are some things you should consider. These structures take an awful long time to build. Decades if not centuries as they require tremendous amounts of resources and technological knowhow. Younger star nations really shouldn’t have megastructures as they likely don’t have the necessary knowhow or time to build it. For example the Stoinians and Treecuu are still consolidating their expansion and have not real time to focus on building such truly crazy ideas. If you decide to incorporate them, realize that they become large targets and centralize your star nation’s economy on it, make you very dependent on them. Do you really wish that? Why spend such effort to create such an obvious target when a more dispersed approach can grant a more successful defence of your nation. These structures aren’t indestructible and when destroyed or damaged, it will take a lot of time to regain its full potential again. They shouldn’t be added because it would be a cool element. Contrary, they become an essential part in your star nations economy. Perhaps they made them out of necessity to enhance production or just to prove themselves that they can?
One of the most famous megastructures is the dyson sphere. A sphere so large it it closes of a star to encapsulate it’s energy. The problem is the transportation of this energy and perhaps one should build housing somewhere in the structure to make it more effective. How you fill in such a structure is up to you really.

An uncompleted Dyson Sphere.

Another megastructure that produces resources is a matter decompressor. This structure uses some serious tech as it take compressed matter from a black hole and transforms it into usable resources such as minerals. This structure is bordering on science fantasy and perhaps should be avoided as your planets and star systems should provide enough minerals and resources for your star nation.

A cartoonish illustration of a matter decompressor in Stellaris.

While not entirely a megastructure, I decided to put the ecumenopolis here. An ecumenopolis is a city that is spread all over a planet. These worlds often are industrial in nature and very important planets filled with commerce. These planets should play an important role within your star nation and due to the nature of them needing decades or centuries to be build, be capitals or at least essential planets to your star nation.

Coruscant, the most famous Ecumenopolis.

Ring worlds are large circular structures that orbit a star. It consists of a continuous region where your population can live. How you decide to fill these rings is up to you. Perhaps the rings have different section for different biomes for different species. Who really knows? Typically the planets of the star system will be used to construct these ring worlds and take decades, if not centuries. Hopefully your nation doesn’t build such constructions around a star that is about to go supernova.

An illustration of a Ring World.

There probably are more types of megastructures, though I choose these as the most important ones and the remaining megastructures can be discussed in the discord server.

Helpful worldbuilding links
Alien species name generator
Planet name generator
Ship name generator
Technobabble Generator